A father who failed

Parenthood is fascinating. You live through excitement, joy, guilt, worry, hope, concern in quick succession and before you know it your children have grown up into young adults who have a life of their own. That’s when you try to quietly assess how good you were as a father and whether you quite measured up to the standards your parents set.

We were a middle class family. My father taught in Hislop College, Nagpur and then moved to Kolkata. My mother wanted to support his meagre earnings and started teaching Bengali in La Martiniere. That’s how I studied there at a subsidised fee. Much of what I am today is what they taught me to be but it has taken me a long time to acknowledge it. Meanwhile, my father went away, where all fathers go, 32 years ago, strapped to a hospital bed in an unfamiliar city. It was a simple surgery but the doctor messed it up. I never got to say goodbye to him because he was in coma when I reached.

My mother, a fiercely independent woman, loved Kolkata and the tiny rented flat where she lived with my father. Circumstances forced her to come to Mumbai to become a reluctant member of my family. Though she died with her head on my lap at 92, I couldn’t say goodbye to her either because her mind had wandered away many years ago to where my father was. The doctor called it Alzheimer’s.

My children have grown up and though I never gave them enough time, I tried to pass on to them all I had learnt. I also taught them the little things I had picked up on the way: How to write, think, create, savour the joys of discovering new things every day and add them to your life. I taught them that habit is tiresome. Life is this great adventure where you experience different things every day. Some beautiful. Some dangerous. Some sad and disappointing. You learn from each. Their grounding was done by their mothers and, in one case, by my own mother. I only added the magic to it. Or so I would like to believe, like all fathers.

Parenthood was never a chore for me and I often argued with my wife because she thought so. After all, she washed the nappies. She saw them off to school. She helped with homework. She went to school concerts and she attended the parent teacher meets. She had good reason to complain. I had all the fun with them and, according to her, spoilt them silly. It was an unfair deal but life dealt it that way and we all went along. But now, after so many years, I feel I did it all wrong. Everything I taught my children has, in effect, handicapped them. It has made them inadequate to face the world they are in. Unfortunately I knew no better. But that does not absolve me from my sense of guilt.

Every day, as a new scam breaks out in sports, politics, business, healthcare, in the army or in education, I watch their disappointment. The nation I taught them to love, respect and defend as they would their own mother has become the biggest breeding ground for rogues, rascals, thieves and thugs. The cricket they were so passionate about is now run by betting syndicates. The city we once adored is now owned by builders, criminals, extortionists, and politicians who are often all three. My own achievements and awards look like an embarrassment today because most of these are now on sale. People we once looked down on for their lack of scruples are the new icons in a world where all art, music, sport, in fact all achievement is measured in terms of who earns how much, a fact that’s gleefully plastered across all media. And here, I brought up my children never to talk money because it’s in bad taste!

What we once shunned is now admired. What we once disapproved are now the ideals of a new society being built on the premise that whatever makes money is good. We are back to Gordon Gekko. He is the God we have rediscovered. Wealth is the new measure of a person’s place in society. Success is measured by earnings. India is rated by its GDP growth and how the stock market’s faring. This leaves behind 90% of Indians to fend for themselves in a world they were never trained to cope with. They can’t fudge marks to get into college. They can’t cheat people to get ahead on their jobs. They can’t fix deals to become rich and famous. They can’t even cope with the new morality because foolish, idealistic parents like you and I didn’t teach them what they needed to know to get by in today’s world. We have let them loose, with no survival skills, in a bazaar where everything’s up for sale, from mangroves to body parts. How do we blame our kids when they rebel against us?

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

Author

Pritish Nandy writes, paints, makes movies and occasionally, when he wins an election, sits in Parliament. He has been writing for The Times of India for over 26 years. In "Extraordinary Issue", he talks to all those who find his views controversial, challenging, charming or even utterly despicable. Just one small caveat. Nandy is always on the move, travelling for a film, writing a book, working on an exhibition of his paintings. Or simply eating lotus. So there could be occasional gaps, the odd delay. But Nandy is Nandy. He never ignores a barb, never lets a compliment go by without swatting it hard.

Pritish Nandy writes, paints, makes movies and occasionally, when he wins an election, sits in Parliament. He has been writing for The Times of India for ov. . .

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Author

Pritish Nandy writes, paints, makes movies and occasionally, when he wins an election, sits in Parliament. He has been writing for The Times of India for over 26 years. In "Extraordinary Issue", he talks to all those who find his views controversial, challenging, charming or even utterly despicable. Just one small caveat. Nandy is always on the move, travelling for a film, writing a book, working on an exhibition of his paintings. Or simply eating lotus. So there could be occasional gaps, the odd delay. But Nandy is Nandy. He never ignores a barb, never lets a compliment go by without swatting it hard.

Pritish Nandy writes, paints, makes movies and occasionally, when he wins an election, sits in Parliament. He has been writing for The Times of India for ov. . .